A source close to the Israeli Foreign Ministry indicated, in a statement to MoroccoLatestNews, that “the final date of the Negev summit will be held at the end of this month in the Kingdom of Morocco”.
“Morocco, Israel and the United States of America have set the end of this month as the official and final date for the Negev 2 Summit, and the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans residing there ‘foreigner Nasser Bourita is expected to announce it soon,’ it was added.
The MoroccoLatestNews source did not specify whether or not the “Negev 2” summit would be held in the Moroccan city of Dakhla, and only said that “the place has not yet been determined, and will be officially announced by the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.
In addition, the source refuted the reports that have been circulating recently about a possible participation in the summit of a Muslim-majority African country on the date, pointing out that “these data are not currently available, and are therefore excluded for the time being”.
Scheduled for March, the Negev Forum was previously postponed due to security tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, coupled with Netanyahu’s return to power. That said, the foreign ministers of Israel, the United States, Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are due to meet in Morocco at the end of June for the second summit of the Negev Forum.
The scheduled date for the conference was reportedly set for June 25. The Negev Forum was created last year during Yair Lapid’s tenure as foreign minister. The first meeting of the forum’s foreign ministers was held last March at Kibbutz Sde Boker, located in the center of the Negev desert in southern Israel, a location that inspired the forum’s name. The next day, the foreign ministers had agreed to hold an annual summit, each time in a different country.
Furthermore, there have been Israeli efforts in recent months to add to the list of countries participating in the Negev Forum, a Muslim-majority African country that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has previously discussed it with his US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to no avail so far.
Also, as our source will have said, there will be no question of it at least for the Negev summit to be held in Morocco at the end of the month. A summit for which the participating Arab countries had asked Israel and the United States to consider changing its name so that it is not so clearly associated with Israel. The Jewish state would, apparently, not be opposed to this idea.